


We're alive, and it's such a shame

by emissaryarchitect



Category: Ava's Demon
Genre: AU, F/M, Other, character deaths in past tense, immortals are the universe's least favorite people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emissaryarchitect/pseuds/emissaryarchitect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six wanted to be a flawless being. They are, and they've been alive long enough to see the universe fall apart and be rebuilt.<br/>Ava wanted to live again. She did, and she's been alive long enough to see the universe fall apart and be rebuilt.</p>
<p>When your worst enemy is your only friend left, its hard to hate them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're alive, and it's such a shame

**Author's Note:**

> A one-shot. I listened to Grace Mitchell's "Your Design" for this, if you want to give it a listen.  
> I might rewrite this when it isn't 3 am lmao

“Are you sure she’s reliable?” another hushed voice behind the thin walls, faces illuminated by faint candlelight. “She’s part of a dead race, you know – I heard remnants aren’t loyal.”

“Of _course_ she’s loyal,” another politician snaps, pulling their hood down. “It’s common knowledge that she’s dedicated to whoever paid for her services.”

“Is it the same one, truly?”

“No one else would have the guts to try and claim the name.”

Voices whisper, fierce and anxious, waiting for their guard and assassin to arrive, the dark halls swallowing up their words like stars in the big empty. Politicians, some corrupt and some not, begin to pull back the velvet curtains to their room in order to watch the walkway to their door, waiting. Watching. Some, praying.

“Are we certain she’s coming at all?”

A voice like ground rubies and cinnamon in a hot wind replies “Of course I came. You paid me, didn’t you?” The politicians all wheel back to see her, standing strong and unyielding as the sun, her copper hair and scarlet eyes piercing the room. Her vision is like blades, and her smile splits like red raw meat to show a smile too white and too sharp. Her hair is in long braids, bound and rebound over and over with several ribbons, winding through the tresses like a serpent through bloodied waters.

“It is you,” one noble politician replies, his voice reverent. “I thought you a myth – my mother used to tell stories about you.”

“Oh really?” the relic replies, her spiced voice warm with amusement. “Was I a hero or a villain?” He doesn’t reply, and she quips softly “Good answer. What are my orders, sirs?” As they pull out maps and plans, she sits in the corner, drumming perfectly filed claws along her forearms. Her skin is a gentle, almost lovely shade of gold, glowing just slightly enough to be seen in the dark.

“Here, you’ll be guarding us up to this point, and stay during the negotiations. After we figure out a target among the quorum of the nine, you’ll be sent to dispose of them.”

“Rookies,” she mumbles under her breath, but none of them hear her. They won’t even call her by her name – it’s too frightening, too intimidating.

She follows them to the meeting, her steps silent as heat and her presence almost forgotten until they made it to the negotiation rooms. She doesn’t care about politics, in honestly – it’s just fun to see people being so monumentally stupid.

No one ever learns.

When they enter, she perches in the corner, unnoticed – unseen. The opposing side demands that any guards be stationed outside of the room or they’ll break the negotiations and go back to their homeworld, so she’s commanded to sit outside with their own hired guard.

She does as she’s asked, and finds herself in the company of familiar blue eyes and a doll-like face.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she admits with a genuine smile, tired and worn, yet still dazzling all the same. “Did you expect me?”

They don’t reply for a long moment, neon blue eyes trained on her form, looking her up and down – they’ve still got a knack for pulling off masks and face covers, so she can’t see their mouth when they smile, but their eyes crinkle in that familiar way. “I didn’t. It’s a pleasant surprise, old friend.”

Together they are so perfect and so wretched that she sighs a little, looking down and relaxing. “So. Come of your own volition, or did they coerce you into being hired?”

“I’m not too tired of the political games yet,” they admit with a little shrug, walking across the darkened stone path to stand with her outside the thin doors “and it’s really the only game I’m good at.” They’re silent for a few minutes, before they ask “What about you? I heard anyone can hire the legendary titan-killer for only a few coin.” They both walk to lean against the nearby wall.

“You say it as if those coins aren’t a life’s worth of money,” she laughs, leaning back a little. “But yes, for a little coin a walking myth can come up to your doorstep and smack around your foes.”

“Why?”

The question catches her off guard and she looks up to her age old enemy and companion with confusion. Their eyes are riddled with curiosity and glow with ferocity, brows furrowed and shoulders hunched. Their question is understood and she digests it for a few moments before smiling bitterly.

“I am tired, Six.” The name hasn’t been spoken in years, and they shiver to hear it from her. “I don’t want to be everyone’s hero anymore, but I don’t want to be forgotten. If I’m forgotten, then no one will ever remember… everyone else.”

Six nods grimly, a slow and sluggish movement, before looking back up to the dark sky. “I can understand that. We are given the worst task, Ava – remembering.” They speak her name naturally, like it’s a normal name to say, like it’s not the name of a galactic killer and the universe’ cruelest hero.

“They mistranslated the old stories, recently,” she responds quietly. “They got Raven and Crow mixed up, and they forgot Olai’s name. Ugh, can you believe it?” She looks back up to Six and works her jaw a little in irritation. “Thousands of years ago, people were naming their children after us and erecting statues in our honor. Now?” She joins Six in looking up at the stars “they can barely remember our names.

“It’s a hard life, isn’t it?”

“We say that, but I just got paid several trillion coin to stand out here and reminisce with you.”

They both laugh a little at that, before Six nudges Ava’s side with their elbow. “Why don’t you ever visit? You know all the ways into my home. I haven’t changed any of my locks or passcodes in a few hundred years.”

“Ah… I wouldn’t ever know what so say,” she admits sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. “Things are so different and bleak now, Six. Nothing ever surprises me – _nothing_. Just last year another tyrant started uprising and I’m not even surprised.”

“What’s their name?” Six asks curiously.

“He calls himself Leviathan, and he doesn’t hold a patch to TiTAN’s rule,” she replies with a hot sigh, crossing her arms in annoyance. “His gimmick is natural selection, or a weird bastardization of it. Thinks that the stronger the species the more ‘deserving’ they are for rule.”

“Sounds like a vengess,” Six snorts, and Ava shoves them a little, good naturedly.

“Well, you’re not wrong. He keeps quoting a lot of Wrathia’s old work, but like, really badly translated? It sounds awful when he says it.”

“It sounded awful when _Wrathia_ said it.”

“That’s twice you’re right; _this_ is why I never visit.”

They laugh again, such a strange, husky sound coming from the both of them. In this moment of peace, they both know they’re friends in the cruelest way possible – time has left them nothing but each other, and in this way, they are the only ones they can rely on.

They are the only ones who can remember a time before this.

Their laughter dies down – Six’s voice grows gentle.

“Forgive me for asking, but… do you still miss them? The original sins?”

Ava knew the question was coming, and her eyelids flutter a little. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do, and other times, it feels like I miss actually _missing_ them, and not having to exist with this… hole. There’s a gap inside me where humanity used to be. I think it died with Odin.”

Six nods a little, short icy blue hair bobbing with the movement. “I’m afraid I understand you completely, Ava.”

“Thinking about TiTAN lately?”

“I thought I missed him, until recently – now I miss having the emotional capacity to miss him.”

“Immortality’s a bitch,” Ava says aloud, leaning her elbows on her knees and sliding down into a sitting position on the ground. Six joins her, slumping to the ground with their legs crossed.

“It is.”

They’re quiet for a long moment, just sitting – breathing together, feeling each other’s presence – a reminder they both exist, and this surreal universe isn’t a dream.

Six turns to Ava, rolling their head, a languid and lazy movement. “We should move in together.”

“Why? If we do, then that one house would be destroyed, along with several thousand years of lost history.”

“Because I miss talking with someone who isn’t hollow,” they reply sincerely. “I miss being able to speak with someone who knows what I’m talking about, and doesn’t treat me like porcelain or like a god or a villain.”

“You’re lonely,” she says. Her voice is pinched and wet, like she’s trying to hold a wound shut – she swallows hard and its obvious she isn’t crying, but she almost was, for a moment. Luckily, they’ve both been through too much for weakness like that anymore.

“I’m lonely, Ava. I miss TiTAN. I miss talking to people who remembered him.” Ava scoots closer to them and they relax a little. “You know a bit back I was talking to a president of some planet and he believes you were Wrathia’s daughter? The one from the egg – a common misconception, I guess, but it jarred me all the same.”

“Yeah,” Ava drops her head a little “I thought I was strikingly different than Galathea – I mean, she was albino, white as _milk_ , and had the disposition of a _cow_ – but I suppose after time, all dead species just kind of blend together. Even if Wrathia’s daughter was so different from me, she did effect both of us until death.”

“…you’re talking like she isn’t in your mind anymore,” Six responds tightly, looking at her inquisitively. “Did you lose your key?”

“No. Wrathia just… went quiet, a few years ago, and she stopped talking. Stopped communicating – I can’t find her in my mind anymore, and I can’t distinguish her magic from mine. I think we failed the pact.”

“You’re not a monster, though – at least, not like one of your friends’ was. They were all distorted and mixed and confused, but you’re still Ava.” Six scoots forward to look at her in clarity, but nothing seems different. “You don’t look like a monster.”

“I can’t make the claws go away anymore, or make my skin turn human. My hair is always this long and growing longer, and my back stopped aching, like my spine is set at this length. I can’t stop being a vengess anymore. It won’t turn off.” Her voice grows louder with urgency, but at the last word she drops into a whisper, as though afraid she might shatter something.

“I thought…” they trail off for a moment, before trying again “I thought you were doing this purposely, like you wanted to be powerful all the time. I didn’t realize…”

“I think its punishment, honestly,” she continues. “As if, I meddled with life and death too much, so neither side will take me anymore. I don’t know,” she puts her hands against her face “No one is around who knows about pacts, they’ve been dead for too long for even the history to remain – I’m in the dark about this. I don’t even know if I should be scared or not – I’ve been around _too long_ to be frightened of anything, anymore.”

Six reaches out and pats her head, as though she’s a child. “It’ll be alright. Everything always turns out boring in the end for us, right? I doubt that will change, it hasn’t in the past few hundred years.”

With that some of her tension melts and she sighs. “I guess. So, you really want me to move in?”

“Of course. I was more thinking we could have a third house, though – a place without bitter memories already soaked into the wallpaper. I know you still use the same bed you and Odin used to sleep on.”

“More out of habit,” she admits with a shrug. “It doesn’t even smell like him anymore.”

“But you still sleep in it.”

“I do.”

Six nudges her again. “So? What do you think? Two vile old immortals, off to live in a house together?”

“It’s funny,” she replies softly “how much we hated each other.”

“We’re too old for hate anymore, Ava. Too old for bad blood and certainly too old for clashes in ideology.”

“Time heals all wounds,” she snickers.

Even the greatest of enemies will become friends, if desperate enough.

The trickster priest of a dead religion sits beside the last vestiges of a dead species and an ancient history, quiet, both of their hard edges eroded by time.

“They’re calling for us to come back in,” she says aloud.

“Fuck ‘em.” Six sits up and pulls Ava with them “We’re having grown-up talk. Let’s go.”

Six snaps their fingers and trails a finger through the air, straight down – a black slit shivers from the movement, before gaping open like a wound, and Ava allows Six to pull her in the warphole. A moment later, they’re on what used to be the Covetess homeworld – now, it’s mostly swamps, having been crossbred with the flower colossus species and creating a stronger subspecies.

It’s been hundreds of years since the last covetess was seen.

Ava and Six both find their way to an old beach, the sand swept away and small pebbles left, dispersed by roots and flotsam. They both sit at the edge and continue their discussion.

“I think it would be good for us. We’re still playing catch-up, aren’t we?”

“We did lose a lot of time,” Ava admits “when the first blitz happened. I was still remembered – they tried to make me a general. I said that title was for synthetic rats.”

Six huffs, trying not to laugh. “Did they get the reference?”

“No, but they acted like they did and that was enough at the time.” She eyes her companion in immortality warily, and asks “Say we _do_ decide to live together. How will that benefit us? I know looking at me just reminds you of when I killed TiTAN – your god, your lover, your _reason for living_ – I know that still hurts.”

“It does,” Six replies with a sigh, putting their fingers up to their pearly chest-plate “but it won’t for long. I know when you look at me you think about that time I almost killed Odin. Does _that_ still hurt? I know that wound was why he died young. It never mended right.”

Ava eyes them before casting her gaze aside with a weak shrug. “If you had said that a thousand years ago, I would have punched you in the mouth. But I can’t find the strength to care about my dear dead lover anymore.”

“Nor can I.”

They stare at Ava while she taps her lips slowly, in contemplation.

“We won’t ever fall in love, will we?” she asks.

“That would be too kind a fate for us. I don’t think so – but we’re the only ones in the universe we can rely on, so the logical thing to do would be to stick together for a little while.” Six pulls down their mask and smiles at her. “So, I take it I’m changing your mind?”

“I… think you are. It’s hard to tell,” she squints “but I might’ve just been arguing for arguments sake. I miss battle-banter.”

They both stand and Six offers an arm for Ava to take as they plan their next destination. “I think there’s a few famous sonnets based around our speeches. We were good at those, right?”

What a wretched, perfect couple.

“I like to think we were legendary with them, but it feels better to spit insults than it is to listen to them. I can’t imagine how many times you called me demon and devil. I think one time you called me a.. what was it… imp? Was that it?”

Time has buffed and worn away their hate for one another, leaving a raw emptiness the other understands seamlessly.

“Goblin,” they correct with faux-haughtiness. “I called you a fire-blooded goblin.”

What a beautiful, _awful_ fate, for your greatest enemy to be the last person left you can trust.

“I think I also called you a gerbil at one point, I was running out of synonyms for rat.” They laugh in response, pulling her close as they open another warp-hole.

“I remember, I took it as a great offense at the time.”

Six and Ava, last of the great wars, laugh together and leave arm in arm. When the warp shuts behind them, it’s as though they were never there. If anyone had been listening, they would have almost thought it funny  - with how they were acting and talking, it had seemed obvious.

What a shame, to know someone for so long, that you can’t even comprehend you’re in love with them.

 


End file.
